(Here via (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=daily_snitch)daily_snitch (http://www.livejournal.com/community/daily_snitch/) or (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=quickquote)hogwarts_today (http://www.livejournal.com/community/hogwarts_today/))
I second (or third?) the recommendation of jetamors (http://www.livejournal.com/users/jetamors/) list. You might also check out The Sugar Quill (http://www.sugarquill.net) archive, which has probably more quality HP gen than any other repository (though it's kind of a drag to search.) The new Hand Me My Robes (http://www.handmemyrobes.com/) archive accepts genfic, and may turn out to be a good resource, but it seems slanted more toward het and demands a rating of R or higher. Also while I'm here, I'll plug my own comm, close_contrast (http://www.livejournal.com/community/close_contrast/)--the fic we get there (and the masterlist my co-mod keeps) focus narrowly on Snape and McGonagall, but we tend to see a fair amount of gen on that topic.
I agree with your other commentors that age, the tendency to cluster by ship, and the lack of any real romance in canon all play a part in the perceived lack of gen. That said, I also think there's more of it out there than we realize, but that it doesn't attract as much attention as the shippy stuff.
Ships provide a very neat, simple way to categorize a story; gen covers such a wide range of topics (and there are so many available int he HP universe) that you may have to pick through a great deal of material before you find something that really interests you. I think a lot of HP fen don't have the time and/or patience to do that, more's the pity. I also think there's a lack of a well-organized archive that specializes in gen, which could help solve that problem; SQ has tons of material, but their search mechanism sucks, and they don't seem to have a browse-by-topic mechanism at all.
The thing that puzzles me most is the common attitude in the fandom that genfic (and het) are somehow inferior to slash by their very nature; as though "sophisticated" or "mature" writers only deal in slash. Where exactly that idea came from, I have no idea, but I find it irksome on the extreme.
(After thinking on it some more,) Possibly it's a reflection of the fact that the HP series is essentially gen/het, is marketed heavily to children, and is seen in the mainstream as strictly a childrens' series. (This despite the fact that there are two sets of covers for the American editions, one designed for kids and the other for adults. I imagine the same is true in other countries as well. It should be self-evident that the series is absolutely suitable for adults as well.) Perhaps some writers are out to prove that this is not a kiddie fandom, by focusing on the most "adult" subjects they can think of?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-04-23 03:38 am (UTC)I second (or third?) the recommendation of
I agree with your other commentors that age, the tendency to cluster by ship, and the lack of any real romance in canon all play a part in the perceived lack of gen. That said, I also think there's more of it out there than we realize, but that it doesn't attract as much attention as the shippy stuff.
Ships provide a very neat, simple way to categorize a story; gen covers such a wide range of topics (and there are so many available int he HP universe) that you may have to pick through a great deal of material before you find something that really interests you. I think a lot of HP fen don't have the time and/or patience to do that, more's the pity. I also think there's a lack of a well-organized archive that specializes in gen, which could help solve that problem; SQ has tons of material, but their search mechanism sucks, and they don't seem to have a browse-by-topic mechanism at all.
The thing that puzzles me most is the common attitude in the fandom that genfic (and het) are somehow inferior to slash by their very nature; as though "sophisticated" or "mature" writers only deal in slash. Where exactly that idea came from, I have no idea, but I find it irksome on the extreme.
(After thinking on it some more,) Possibly it's a reflection of the fact that the HP series is essentially gen/het, is marketed heavily to children, and is seen in the mainstream as strictly a childrens' series. (This despite the fact that there are two sets of covers for the American editions, one designed for kids and the other for adults. I imagine the same is true in other countries as well. It should be self-evident that the series is absolutely suitable for adults as well.) Perhaps some writers are out to prove that this is not a kiddie fandom, by focusing on the most "adult" subjects they can think of?